Belief and Settledness

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 66 (6):1094-1119 (2023)
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Abstract

This paper elucidates the sense in which belief is a question-settling attitude. In her recent work, Jane Friedman suggests that we understand the settledness of belief in terms of a normative principle about belief and inquiry: one ought not inquire into a question and believe the answer to the question at the same time. On the basis of the distinction between dispositional and occurrent belief, I argue against Friedman that there is no principle linking belief and inquiry that is both plausible and normative: on the dispositional reading of ‘belief’, such a principle is implausible; on the occurrent reading of ‘belief’, such a principle is not normative. I argue instead that the settledness should be understood as a descriptive relation between occurrent belief and inquiry: one cannot inquire into whether p while at the same time occurrently believing that p.

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Wooram Lee
Seoul National University

Citations of this work

Intentions and Inquiry.Daniel C. Friedman - 2025 - Mind 134 (533):85-106.
Epistemic Courage.Jonathan Ichikawa - 2024 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Norms of Inquiry.Eliran Haziza - 2023 - Philosophy Compass 18 (12):e12952.

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